or abbreviations which suggest the entire image, in the same way in which the single letter N. suggests to us the word north, or the letters MS. the word manuscript. The order, too, of his pantomime follows the order of his perceptions, an order which, though strictly natural, appears inverted to those accustomed to the order of words in most spoken languages. It is the characteristic of a language of pantomime to present groups of ideas at once,-or, when it becomes necessary to exhibit the parts of an outline or group in detail, the most prominent or essential must be presented first, that they may be more easily retained in the mind till, by adding the other parts in the order of their relative importance, the group is completed.

When practice has made this mode of communication familiar, it becomes unnecessary to trace more than a few of the most prominent outlines. The mind of the spectator supplies the rest in the same way in which, seeing a part of some familiar object, we know to what object it belongs. And this species of abbreviation may be extended to examples and metaphors used to illustrate ideas beyond the limits of the material world. The two words, fox and grapes, instantly recall the whole fable and its application to those to whom they are familiar, and the sign language of the deaf and dumb is composed, in great part, of similar abbreviations. But we are wandering from our present subject.

From what has been said, it is evident that the employment of such a language demands the direct intuition of ideas, both to execute and to comprehend the pantomime with facility. Hence it is, that deaf mutes are far more skilful in the use of this instrument of communication than those who, from the almost exclusive use of an artificial language, have acquired the opposite mental habit. And vice versa, the invincible predilection of all deaf mutes for their own language of pantomime very seriously obstructs their familiar acquisition of a language more universally intelligible among men, partly by making the use of the latter less frequent, but partly, also, by confirming habits of mind very unfavorable to the ready conception of such a language. Direct intuition, (including, of course, the actual contemplation of the image of the object in its presence, as well as of the same image recalled in the absence of the object,) must be, in the first instance, the foundation of all positive know

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ledge. It is the only mode in which the value of those signs can be determined which cannot be defined by other signs previously known, and therefore, the first conceptions, the first dawnings of observation and reflection in the mind of a child who hears, must be, equally with those of a deaf mute child, by the mode of direct intuition.

But, teach the child to represent objects and their qualities and relations, classes, and their generic or specific differences, actions and their modifications, by separate signs,-signs, too, which the mind can, from their greater simplicity, grasp, arrange and combine more readily than it can the actual images of objects and actions ;-let him use such signs continually in acquiring and communicating ideas, and, though at first both the sign and the image will be present in the mind, yet the image will soon retire more and more in the back ground, while the sign will stand prominently forth. The case may, perhaps, be illustrated by comparing the sign to those labels in a cabinet of minerals, which often nearly conceal the specimen on which they are placed.

Let us further suppose that these signs become, in process of time, arranged in a customary order of collocation, very different from the natural order of ideas;-that many of them come into use to denote general relations, as far beyond the limits of direct intuition, as the higher principles of geometry are beyond the simple truths called axioms;-that the mind is led by them into the boundless realms of abstract existences where intuition cannot follow ;-and we can easily conceive that the presence of signs for ideas will become essential to the greater number of mental operations, and that so intimate a union will be formed between the idea and the sign by which it is most usually represented-the latter standing. to the former in the relation of body to soul,-that the mind will become habituated to consider, not ideas directly, but the signs of those ideas.

When a system of signs for ideas either originally arbitrany, as in the case of spoken words, or become so by successive changes and abbreviations, as with the Chinese written characters, and with many of the signs used by the deaf and dumb, has been carried to a high degree of cultivation and refinement, by the successive labors of a vast multitude of superior minds, and, especially, when the memory has been stored with innumerable happy combinations of those signs,

in the form of proverbs, of passages from favorite authors, etc., the mental habit just referred to, assumes so much the character of an universal law, that we are hardly conscious of thinking at all unless we think by the aid of such signs. Hence some have denied that the deaf mute could think without a language to serve as the instrument of thought, and, thus, have most unjustly measured the extent of his ideas by the copiousness of his colloquial dialect. But, though we admit that the Atlantic cannot be crossed without a vessel, yet a practised swimmer will cross rivers which a man accustomed to rely on a boat, would think impassable without its assistance. And though the deaf mute who thinks by direct intuition, cannot attain to the same depth and reach of thought enjoyed by those who possess a more perfect mode of registering successive results and discoveries, he can, nevertheless, think and reason to a much greater extent than is commonly supposed.

Perhaps the most striking difference between the two mental habits under consideration is that, while the pantomimic signs of a deaf mute suggest but a very limited number of relations or associations, other than those obvious at first sight between the objects represented, on the contrary, each sign in an artificial language brings with it a long train of associations, from the almost innumerable shades of meaning, both literal and metaphorical, of which each sign is susceptible, and the vast variety of combinations in which we have been accustomed to use it, or find it used. While the pantomimic signs, serving, as it were, as the object glass to a camera obscura, recall real images, a sign of the other class recalls not so much an image or outline, as some of the many associations with which we have been accustomed to connect that sign. It will be at once admitted that, to a blind man, the word eagle or lion cannot suggest the real image of those animals, but will nevertheless recall the ideas of their strength, courage, dominion over weaker animals, the soaring flight of the one, the kingly port of the other, and the innumerable historical and poetical associations founded on those qualities. There is a very large class of minds whose ordinary conceptions of words are very little different from those of the blind man. And indeed there are very many words which, though representing sensible objects, can hardly be connected with any particular images. Take, for example, such words as

church, temple, flower, fruit, laurel, cypress, steed, courser, hovel, palace, citadel, each of which is linked with such a throng of ideas, that those sensible images which are the objects of real intuition, if they appear at all, are most commonly overlooked, or at best, dimly distinguished in the crowd.

With mankind in general, the articulated sounds called words are the signs thus used to represent ideas. When men have been accustomed, from the earliest glimmerings of recollection, to conduct their intellectual operations by means of such signs, arbitrary in themselves, and equally arbitrary in their mode of arrangement, the faculty of direct intuition becomes, not only much weakened, but greatly modified. The memory learns to cling tenaciously to articulated sounds, and recalls visual forms with comparative difficulty. Hence it is that, in order to assist our recollections of plants or minerals, for example, we find it necessary to give a name to each. Moreover, from the facility which such a system of signs gives to the processes of generalization and abstraction, the mind becomes habituated to contemplate rather general principles than particular examples.

It is not perhaps surprising that, deceived by mental habits like these, which, though acquired, have by custom become second natures, many have maintained that the articulations of the human voice have an exclusive prerogative to serve as the direct object and instrument of thought. Such an opinion, however, belongs to an age of philosophy little advanced, and is no more worthy of serious refutation at this day, than the once universal notion that the earth is at rest while the sun moves round it. Its origin is evidently to be traced to those systems of philosophy once venerated, but now only remembered to excite a smile, which were built exclusively on words, and akin to which was the mysterious and supernatural power ascribed to certain words used in spells and incantations; notions which the stern and unimaginative philosophy of our days has long since banished to the realms of poetry and romance.

Absurd as the opinion in question may appear to us, it seems to have been held by most of the early instructors of the deaf and dumb, who, in consequence, gave their attention chiefly to supplying, by laborious instruction in artificial articulation, the necessary medium of thought; forgetting that,

to the deaf and dumb, speech can never be what it is to other men, a language of sounds, but must be confined to the movements of the vocal organs,-in short, must become a language of visible, or possibly of tactile, but never of audible signs. Consequently, if such views were to be admitted, we should be constrained to regard the condition of the deaf and dumb from birth as utterly hopeless. Most fortunately for them, the instances of Massieu, Clerc, Loring, and others that might be named, afford illustrious proofs that a knowledge of sounds, or of articulation, is unnecessary to a more than common development of the intellectual faculties.

To this error succeeded another, which has also had a great influence on the systems of some celebrated instructors of the deaf and dumb. When at length deaf mutes were collected together in communities, the expansion of their natural language of gestures became so rapid, that men began to suspect its capability of reaching a degree of perfection equal to that of existing spoken languages. It was moreover observed that, with whatever care a deaf mute was instructed in written language, he still preferred to employ the language of gestures in his intercourse with all to whom that language was intelligible, and especially in his private meditations. Hence it was argued that he must always continue to think in that language, and to regard written words only as the representatives of his signs. It hence became a favorite labor with the benevolent De l'Epée, and with his renowned successor Sicard, to bring this language to such a state of perfection, that the task of instructing the deaf and dumb might be reduced to the mere process of translation, or rather to the mechanical substitution of written characters for their corresponding gestures.

If we suppose a whole nation of deaf mutes to exist together for successive generations, it is evident that, by the time they should have reached, (and they certainly might reach) a degree of knowledge and refinement equal to that of the present civilized nations of the earth, they would have formed a language of gestures equally copious, equally perspicuous and precise, and perhaps, in some respects, equally arbitrary with the spoken languages now in use. But it is just as evident that to comprehend and employ such a language, demands, in the first place, a corresponding development of ideas, and that where this condition does not exist, its signs